{"id":3341,"date":"2017-09-06T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T04:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3341"},"modified":"2017-09-05T10:35:43","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T14:35:43","slug":"twenty-one-01-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3341","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-one – 01"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDid you feel it, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hecate swallowed, feeling sick. She pressed her back against the cool wall of the hollow they hid in, Lin cradled against her chest. The infant\u2019s fingers clutched at her shirt, though he didn\u2019t seem upset or fussy otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u201cHecate?\u201d Neve edged closer to her, her brow furrowing in concern. Hecate sucked in a breath, not realizing she\u2019d been holding hers, and looked up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cI felt it. It\u2019s\u2014it\u2019s unsettling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t hear anything up there anymore,\u201d Neve said. \u201cSomeone will come to give us the all-clear soon. That\u2019s how it works.\u201d She glanced toward the two baskets where the twins slept and toward Angie, who sat with a book open against her knees and a lantern next to her. Hecate followed her gaze, caught the gleam of the girl\u2019s eyes before she looked down again, pretending to read\u2014or perhaps actually doing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou felt it, too, didn\u2019t you?\u201d Hecate whispered, her gaze still on Angie.<\/p>\n

The girl nodded. \u201cSomeone was trying to hurt the wards,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cI could feel that. Maybe she was trying to hurt Miss Marin, too. I don\u2019t know. I couldn\u2019t tell. Mister Phelan\u2019s been teaching me to read the wards, though, so I pay attention to them. Maybe I shouldn\u2019t when bad people are coming to hurt us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh. Oh, Angie.\u201d Neve squeezed Hecate\u2019s shoulder before she moved toward Angie. Hecate managed not to wince at the contact, trying to concentrate on what Angie was saying and the feeling of the baby in her arms.<\/p>\n

Marin trusts me to keep him safe.<\/em><\/p>\n

That meant<\/em> something.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m okay,\u201d the girl said as Neve hugged her, though she reached up to scrub some tears from her face. \u201cI\u2019m okay, Miss Neve. They stopped\u2014no one\u2019s trying to hurt them anymore, or Miss Marin. It\u2019s okay. But the storm sounds a little scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be okay,\u201d Neve said, her voice steady.<\/p>\n

Hecate envied the other woman a little. Somehow the reassurance came so easily\u2014or so it seemed. Perhaps Neve was just as accomplished of a liar as she was.<\/p>\n

Hecate closed her eyes, bowing her head. She could feel the storm in the marrow of her bones, and other things, too. The wound in her side ached and pulsed, worse than it had that morning. Idly, she wondered if it had something to do with all the moving she\u2019d been doing, or if it was something else, something more insidious.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know?\u201d Angie asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m really old,\u201d Neve said, a faint tremor of laughter in her voice. \u201cWhen you get to be really old you know things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh.\u201d There was doubt in Angie\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n

Hecate opened her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. The lamplight turned Neve and Angie into ghosts limned in gold. For a second, her breath caught, her heart missing a beat, then she settled again, forcing herself to relax.<\/p>\n

Maybe she\u2019s right. Maybe it will be okay.<\/em><\/p>\n

Powers above and below, I hope she is. I hope she is.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.] \u201cDid you feel it, too?\u201d Hecate swallowed, feeling sick. She pressed her back against the cool wall of the hollow they hid in, Lin cradled against her chest. The infant\u2019s fingers clutched … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,269,14],"tags":[225,150,171,170,228,194,227,151,149,148,168,147,165,200,146],"class_list":["post-3341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-21-book-6","category-story","tag-angie-van-rijn","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-gwen-johanson","tag-hecate","tag-kurt-johanson","tag-neve-vaughan","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thomas-merlin-ambrose","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-RT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3342,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions\/3342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}